The Last Words You Said
by Kicki
Summary: Phoebe and Cole find themselves at the end of the line. Will they find it in themselves to open their hearts to one another before it is too late?


**Author's note:  
**  
This fanfic was originally written in a desperate flurry one dark night in December when I had found out that Cole was not to survive the 100:th episode on January 19, 2004. The story is dedicated in loving memory of Cole Turner and to be seen as my attempt to give him a better end than he got in the show.

Imagine that in the scene just before this starts, the Charmed Ones were threatened to their deaths with no chance to escape, but are miraculously saved as something powerful cancels out whatever evil that was out to destroy them.

_**The Last Words You Said**_

_"People who are meant for each other wade through the same as anybody else. The difference is that they fight it out. They don't give up. Someone will say something."  
Dr. Cox in "Scrubs"  
_

_Funny how it seems that all I've tried to do  
Seemed to make no difference to you at all…  
Lyrics by Sarah McLachlan ; The Path of Thorns_

He looked up at the sound and saw her stumble through the debris and rubble, coming towards him, and cursed under his breath. "Go away!" he barked at her. "I want to die alone."

"You wish!" she snapped angrily. "I'm here to make sure you will die this time."

"Then by all means have a seat. It shouldn't take too long." He lifted his hand a little to reveal the deep, bleeding gash in his side.

In spite of her resolve, Phoebe couldn't stop the gasp. "You're… I thought…"

"Yeah, well, things change."

"But your powers?"

"My powers…" He scoffed a little. "I had a... ah… _accident _with them over there and I seem to have … lost them."

"Lost?" Phoebe stared at him, not sure what to believe. Was this another of his tricks? "What happened?"

"I tried to kill a witch." He scowled at the memory. "And changed my mind."

"That… that was… you? Over there, _saving_ us, that was you?" Phoebe was shocked and confused. "I don't believe it!" she burst out.

Cole merely shrugged and grimaced with pain as he did. "Whatever," he muttered and turned away from her, hoping she would go away, but she didn't.

Instead she walked over to where he sat and just stood there looking down at him. "What happened, Cole," she said after a long silence. "What happened to us?"

"Evil," he stated simply. "Evil happened to us, Phoebe. And we let it win."

"_You_ let it win! I didn't," she protested angrily. "I didn't let the Source take me over. I didn't collect a lot of demonic power or tried to raise the Underworld and kill innocents. I tried to fight you every step of the way, so don't say _I_ let Evil win."

"You think I _let_ the Source take me over?" He squinted up at her. "You think I _wanted_ the throne of the Underworld and all these powers?" With a sigh of defeat he sank back against the wall. "All I ever wanted was you," he whispered.

"I noticed," Phoebe snapped. "You had one hell of a way to show it."

"Yeah, well maybe I should have let you die instead? Would it be better if I had killed you that night in my old apartment? Or let you stay a mermaid for the rest of your life? Damn it, Phoebe, I gave up everything for you; my life, my soul, my powers. I _died_ for you, Phoebe, and when I came back, you…" He swallowed. "Didn't that mean _anything_ to you?"

She didn't answer at once and then it just burst out of her. "Don't you dare talk to me about sacrificing everything!" she fumed. "I gave up my sisters for you. I became your Queen of the Underworld and carried baby Lucifer for you. Who gave up everything for whom? I hated you for making me evil, and I hated you for making me love you so much that I did, and I hated you for forcing me to vanquish you! Have you ever vanquished the love of your life? Do you know how it feels to…?" She stopped abruptly as he just looked at her - his intense eyes boring right through her. Unable to meet his gaze, she looked away.

"I never wanted you to turn evil, Phoebe," he assured her quietly. "I mourned the day you did."

"Oh, yeah? You could have fooled me."

"That wasn't me. That was the Source."

"You_were _the Source, Cole," she burst out. "Don't deny that!"

"I don't. But you have to know that he took me over, I didn't _let _him do that. I was fighting him every way I could think of, but he was too strong. Without my own powers I couldn't withstand, and he had a hold on me too."

"What 'hold'?" she sneered.

"Can't you guess? You. It was always you, Phoebe. He held you hostage for my cooperation. And you were my only hope of survival. My love for you was what kept you alive. Kept us both alive." He sighed again, suddenly tired and full of remorse.

"I don't understand," Phoebe shook her head.

"The Source knew that he could force me to kill you if he really tried," he explained patiently. "But he also knew that if you died, so would a part of me. He needed the strength I found in your love, to retrieve the throne, so he made me a deal I couldn't turn down."

As the pieces that she had missed before began to fall in place and the bigger picture became clear, Phoebe felt a strong need to sit down. "Goddamn it, Cole!" she yelled at him. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you, I could have…"

"Don't you think I tried!?" he barked back. "Remember the migraines I had? Remember all the times you woke up and found me out of bed? There were times when I tried to end it _myself, _but he didn't let me, Phoebe! He didn't let me…" Closing his eyes against the pain, he sank back against the wall again. "Remember the old Phoebe? She knew, I told her and she was going to tell you, but the Seer made sure she couldn't." Despondent he looked away, unable to meet her shocked and disbelieving stare. "And after that it was too late." He looked up at her again with a bitter grimace. "You never did figure out what happened that night, did you? I never got the chance to tell you. If I had known what the Seer planned when she offered me to take the Hollow… She tricked me. She tricked us all, you know. I _knew_ she was up to something, but there seemed to be no alternative. Without my powers I was helpless to save you. Without the Hollow, you and your sisters would die and the Source would triumph. I took a gamble and while I won your life... I lost mine, and I am sorry, but if I had to do it all over again, I think I would make the same choice."

"I don't understand," she repeated, her dark, almond-shaped eyes narrow as she gazed down at him.

"We never do," he sighed. "I've been around a while, Phoebe. Believe me, when it comes to Fate we seldom get the chance to understand, we're just along for the ride and have to hold on the best we can. You and me, we were just pawns in this game between Good and Evil. You were destined to vanquish the Source and I was destined to fall in love with you. It was all planned – inevitable."

For a long while neither of them spoke. Cole thought he had said what he had to say, and Phoebe tried to sort it all out.  
Reluctantly, she realized that what he said rang true. Every event that had taken place since they met, sort of gripped into eachother in a long chain, where each single event led up to the next. And now it had come to this. Chagrined, she looked down at him. "Why didn't you stay away, Cole? Why did you have to come back?"

"Why did you have to come down to the Underworld and get me back?" he snapped and Phoebe looked away hastily, her breath sucked in sharply. "Prue might have been alive today if you hadn't," he added to her discomfort. He couldn't help it; he wanted to get back at her in some way. By the hurt look in her eyes, he could see that he had hit home.

"That was unnecessary," she forced out between clenched teeth.

"I just wanted you to put things in a perspective that doesn't limit itself to the view of Phoebe Halliwell."

"I loved you," she protested with vehemence. "There was still good in you then."

"Are you sure? Maybe I tricked you into believing that too. Or maybe you just had to prove what a great little witch you were? Play with fire and you are liable to get burned." His stern, bluegreen eyes held hers, but then he looked away and his voice grew soft again. "I loved you too," he murmured. "So very much…" He blinked as if he just realized something and shrugged a little. "As I said, it was inevitable. Don't blame yourself."

"I don't," she snapped. "I blame you. Are you even the least bit sorry?"

"I could find a hundred ways to tell you I'm sorry, Phoebe, but would it make any difference?" As her eyes veered away from his again, he smiled a little. "I'm sorry about a lot of things, but I don't regret a minute that I fell in love with you. That is, I did, for a while there." He gestured with his head and gave her a faint apologetic smile. "But you broke my heart, you know." Taking a deep but ragged breath, Cole regained part of his composure. "In the Wasteland, all I could think of was that if I could get back, we could have what was ours to begin with. I thought we had earned it." He stared emptily in front of him for a while. Then he lifted imploring eyes to hers. "Why did you push me away?"

"I was afraid you would drag me back to evil," she confessed quietly, a hint of regret sneaking in to her voice. "It was horrible, and I didn't want to risk it again. I didn't want to go through all that one more time."

"It was that horrible to love me?" he whispered.

"No," she protested immediately. "I loved to love you. And I loved being loved by you, but… You became evil, Cole. You even tried to kill my sisters. How did you expect me to just look away from that?"

"I told you, that was the Source, not me. But I guess that doesn't change anything."

"No, it doesn't. I didn't want anything more to do with you, so I ran. I admit that I was wrong. I should have taken the time to talk to you, have it all out, but I was just so scared."

"And by pushing me away you helped creating what you wanted to avoid."

"No, Cole, don't blame me!" she objected with a set look. "It wasn't my fault that you went over the top. It was you who couldn't let it go."

"And why do you think I didn't want to? You've figured out almost everything else I've put in your way. Don't you remember when you turned into a Banshee?"

She gave him a doubtful sneer. "Don't tell me this is a demonic equivalent."

"No, it isn't. I want you to think about what I told you in the mausoleum, before I left."

Phoebe's forehead wrinkled as she tried to drag that night back into memory. She remembered the pain alright, but what had he said? "You said… you said that Raynor knew that the only way to turn you… was to destroy your only foothold to Good." She faltered and glazed over a little as the implications began to dawn on her.

Cole nodded a little as he saw that she understood. "Unfortunately, I need your love to remain good." He shrugged at the undeniable fact. "It is as true today, as it was then. You were wrong about me being dangerous, having all those demonic powers, because powers in themselves are not evil. As long as I thought you loved me, I _could_ stay good, but without you I had nothing to hold on to. I _knew_ what would happen if you turned me down, and I didn't want that any more than you did. I was so afraid of becoming evil and I was so afraid that I would hurt you if I did." He sighed again. "I can't fight you, Phoebe, I never could. I was down on my hands and knees and you just kept kicking. Why wouldn't you help me? I saved your lives over and over. I even took back my powers from Barbas…" – he winced at the memory – "and still you pushed me away. I became so desperate I began to cave in. I was so angry with you for doing this to me, for forcing me back into the evil ways I so wanted to escape. When I gave up on you, I gave up on me too. I couldn't fight it and it turned my love into an obsession. I became what we both feared – evil." Cole shook his head in sorry denial. "It went so far I even wanted to kill you. That's what I meant by us letting Evil win. Whenever you close your heart to love, Evil wins. Trust me on this; I've been a demon for over a century. I know these things."  
He laughed a short, hacking laugh that ended in a bout of cough that wrecked his body and he cried out at the pain. Immediately, she was squatting down beside him and he was surprised to feel her hands on his body.

"Why didn't you?" she asked quietly as he stopped coughing. "Kill me, I mean."

She was looking right at him and he turned the question over in his mind as his breath wheezed in and out of his aching lungs. "I guess I realized that if I did, Evil _would _triumph and then all this had been for nothing. I would lose again and I wanted to win, just this once. I'm so damn tired of losing all the time." He grimaced and squirmed, trying to find a position that would hurt less, but it seemed impossible so he gave it up. "Looks like I lost anyway," he muttered, with a defeated glance at the dark puddle forming beside him.

Phoebe bit her lip as she regarded him with mixed feelings. 'Damn you,' she thought. 'You're doing it to me again.'  
"I'm going to call Leo," she decided, but he shook his head.

"No, it's too late now."

"What do you mean? It can't be. As long as you are alive, Leo can…"

"That's not what I meant. It's too late for us. You said it yourself, you are over me and I can't live without you – literally. We are both better off with me dead and you know it. Don't force me to live a miserable life, Phoebe."

"But I don't want you to die like this," she almost wailed. "I… I don't want to lose you again, Cole." She whimpered and her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. "I want… you."

Cole closed his eyes for a second. _Now you tell me. _"Phoebe," he gave her that gentle smile that she adored to get. "What we want, doesn't count. It never did. We have played our part in this cosmic game of chess, and I'm being taken off the board. My part is over. You are right; I never should have come back. That was an oversight by whomever it was that made it all up, but the Universe has a way of correcting its mistakes. I've lived on borrowed time and now I have to pay the price. There is nothing you or I, or even Leo can do about it. Death always gets who he comes for, right?" He smiled at her again, but this time it was a rather wan smile.

Phoebe looked away, trying hard to bite back the tears that welled up. "It's not fair," she whispered.

"It never is." When she looked like that, he fell in love with her all over again. He lifted his hand to her face and as he felt her soft skin beneath it, his breath caught a little in his throat. It was so long ago and he had longed so much. Gently, he caressed her cheek the way he had caressed it so many times in the past, before the nightmare started.

Memories, as painful as they were beautiful, washed over her and she lowered her eyes, but Cole tipped up her chin so that she had to look him in the eyes. They were remarkably blue – calm and deep as the ocean – and the madness that had burnt in them before was all gone.

"I guess a part of me never stopped loving you," he whispered. He felt his strength ebb out, but just as his hand began to slide away, she caught it in hers and held it to her face, kissing it.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed.

"Don't be." He shook his head a little and coughed again. "Evil is a formidable adversary."

"Cole, please don't do this! If you die now, Evil has won anyway."

"No, Phoebe. Evil will lose, because this way, it can never make me hurt you again." He coughed some more, spitting up blood. "Evil can't triumph over true love. It never could."  
Now that everything was over, he was so tired.

"Cole…?"

Hearing how her breath caught in her throat, he forced his eyes open again. She was the last person he had wanted to see, and the only person he ever wanted to see. How ironic that she was now the last person he would ever see. "I didn't want the power," he slurred "I never wanted the power… it was just something that happened." He let his finger touch her lips. "Isn't it funny how we always seem to want the one thing we can't have?"  
It was funny how the pain started to go away, too. Actually, he couldn't feel his legs at all. He did feel the warmth of her hands holding his though. "Phoebe?"

"Yes?" It was barely audible.

"I think I'm dying…"

"Cole, no…"

"Hush, honey, it's alright. I've had more lives than a cat. I'm glad I got to spend some of them with you. If I can't have you, I have nothing to live for anyway." He made himself comfortable against the wall. "It's been a tough year and I think I could need some rest ."

"Rest?" Phoebe gave him a despairing look. "Cole... Whatever awaits you I'm afraid 'rest' won't be part of it. You can't do this! I won't let you."

"Actually," he mused whimsically, as if he hadn't heard her, "I think Hell is going to be a picnic after what I've been through. It couldn't possibly be worse."

"Leo!" Phoebe yelled. "LEO!"

"Phoebe, no. Please. Will you listen to me just this one last time?"

She looked down at him with tear-filled eyes and nodded, her voice not strong enough to carry her words.

"I want this, you want this. It's for the best. Leo can do nothing for me, but you can. Will you do one last thing for me?"

"Anything." She squeezed his hand.

"Just remember the good stuff, hm? Remember me the way I was before I turned mad. If you could keep a small place in your heart for me, maybe it will count for something."

She nodded, unable to speak.

"I love you," he whispered then. "I will love you forever, Phoebe. They tried to take that away from me too, but I couldn't let them, could I?" The world was becoming a dark blur and he blinked at it, trying to focus on her. "Wherever I go, wherever I'll be, I will always love you. And if I'm lucky, maybe I will meet you in the next life and then we can have all that which we didn't get in this one." He had to admit that he was a little scared, but Phoebe would be safe and that was all that mattered. The rest he would deal with later. He was so tired now, just so incredibly tired.

Her scent floated into his nostrils and he realized that she was very close. Then he felt her lips against his and her breath in his mouth, and with a whimper of relief he kissed her back.  
The nightmare was finally over.

"I love you, Cole Turner," Phoebe whispered between the tears that streamed down her cheeks. "I will always love you, and nothing can ever change that." She cradled him close and wrapped him into her arms. "Damn you, for dying on me now."  
Burying her face in his black hair, she gently rocked the limp body while his head rested against her shoulder as if he was sleeping, and the words of the fortuneteller rang in her ears:  
_"The name of your true love begins with a 'C'." _

**The End**

_Somewhere in time I know  
Darling, you'll come back to me  
Roses will grow again  
Spring feels like eternity  
In your kiss it wasn't goodbye  
You are still the reason why  
I can hear you whispering in the silence of my room  
My heart still surrenders like the sun to the moon  
I can barely stand this aching burning endlessly  
'Love me now forever'  
were the last words you said to me_

_And when the morning comes  
My hands still reach out for you  
Something's remained inside  
And there's nothing I can do  
I can barely get through the day  
Ever since you went away  
I still hear you whispering in the silence of my room  
My heart still surrenders like the sun to the moon  
I can barely stand this aching burning endlessly  
'Love me now forever'  
were the last words you said to me_

_Lyrics by Richard Marx ; The Last Words You Said_


End file.
